


Usurper to the Throne

by Only_1_Truth



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd/Tim Drake if you squint, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pre-Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Tim has terrible parents, Tim is a shy muffin who needs hugs, Unrequited hero-worship, and Jason definitely doesn't notice, because Tim definitely looks up to Jason, burgeoning bromance if you don't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: When Jason Todd died, Tim Drake stepped in - because it felt like he could be useful, and help the Batman out a bit.When Jason Todd came back from the dead, Tim Drake realized that he'd filled shoes that were never empty to begin with.  To say that he felt guilty as hell didn't even begin to cover it.The fact that he can't look Jason in the eye long enough to offer him his old position back isn't helping.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is planned as part of a series that will _eventually_ be Jason/Tim, but "Usurper to the Throne" is slotted to remain gen :)

Chapter 1: Tim Drake

 

It all started when Tim Drake found out that he wasn’t really Robin.  He couldn’t be, not with the previous Robin not actually _dead_.

Okay, so it probably started earlier than that.  Like when the Joker realized he had a taste for birds, and finally managed to capture one.  Jason was used to unfair fights and bad odds even before he tried to steal the batmobile’s tires and got himself a secret identity instead, but the odds this time were worse than bad, and when his luck ran out and the Joker’s luck waxed like a gibbous moon…  At around the same time that Tim Drake was coming to the horrible but comparatively miniscule discovery that his parents didn’t love him so much as he’d always hoped, Bruce Wayne was discovering a video sent right to him, documenting the slow death of his latest protege.  It was a bad day for everyone except the villains, but a worse day for Jason Todd.

Days later, Tim heard about it on the news.  Robin was dead.  Somehow that felt ten times more real than the reality that his parents would probably never see him as anything more than an accessory to show off to their friends and families.  Considering that Tim _might_ have… maybe… already deduced the identities of the legendary Bat and his first sidekick, it seemed natural to give up on his life in the opulent mansion with the silent, cold halls and take a leap of faith instead.  After all, it was a leap of faith that had made him realize that Dick Grayson was Robin, right?  A lunging jump on a flying trapeze - no safety net - and suddenly Tim Grayson had a hero who was human, and he surprisingly didn’t mind that.  

Batman/Bruce Wayne was… more furious than Tim had expected, at the boy who turned up at his doorstep asking for Batman.  In retrospect, maybe Tim should have realized that this was the only welcome he could get.  He’d noted, in the weeks following Robin’s death (a Robin that Tim didn’t actually know the real face of, which irked the logical side of him), that the Batman was growing increasingly reckless, and he’d had high hopes of being helpful in that regard.  Tim had taken lots of classes in martial arts and self-defense - anything to stave off the boredom and work off the frustration that came from distant parents and a social status that precluded most forms of easy friendship.  

Believe it or not, he hadn’t actually hoped to become the next Robin.

Therefore, it was shocking that - after a lot of intimidating and some very ungentlemanly shouting on Mr. Wayne’s part - that was exactly what Tim became.  

So maybe it started there.  And by ‘it,’ Tim generally meant a sort of obsession with his predecessor.  While he took well enough to the mask and the cape, he couldn’t help but feel that he was walking with graveyard dirt in his shoes, but after seeing what a furious wreck grief had made Bruce Wayne into, Tim wisely decided not to ask why he’d chosen a new Robin so soon.  Walking in a dead-man’s shoes would have been easier if the man had actually… well, been dead awhile.  Tim had always been quiet, though, so instead of trying to talk to Bruce about the last Robin - about Jason.  Jason had been his name.  Tim was glad to learn it, even if he grimaced uncomfortably at the title of ‘My Soldier’ engraved into the plaque in bigger letters than his name - he got accustomed to the workshop, and worked on making his cloak into something more than a ostentatious fashion statement.  The rest of his time he spent training, because he hadn’t been born to this like acrobat-Greyson had, or street-scrapper-Todd.

Tim had just barely gotten used to the job, used to working as a vigilante right under his parents’ high noses, used to closing his teeth around the question, ‘ _How could you replace him so easily_?’ (the third being tenfold harder than the second, which was so easy that it broke Tim’s heart a little where no one could see), when his whole world got turned upside down.

When Jason Todd came back from the dead.  

Tim thought more in terms of logic and technology than magic, so even if the shock hadn’t been sending jagged fissures through him like thin ice under too much weight, he doubted that he’d have understood how in the world Todd was back.  He heard something about a Lazarus Pit, about a painful revival and a memory that screwed up the details.  

But mostly what he heard was that Jason Todd hadn’t died in that video.  

He’d died _weeks_ afterwards, with his own personal hell of torture in between.  

Somewhere beneath the horrified shock, Tim realized that this was the most vicious blow to the Bat that the Joker had possibly ever conceived.  Killing Robin was one thing - keeping him alive until Batman named his replacement was quite another.  

“He showed me a video, you know?”  

Tim had been at home, in his quiet, tomb-silent house, but he’d heard Jason’s rough, wry voice because Tim hacked things when he was upset - just like when he was bored.  Or maybe the two had always been the same thing.  So, hacked into the Batcave’s video feeds, Tim had watched his not-gone-predecessor lean against the wall with his shoulders bunched tight like he was holding a whole storm of lightning in between them, his eyes crackling with it beneath that streak of newly-white hair amidst the obsidian black.  Tim looked at the older Robin and shivered, realizing that he was a usurper to Jason’s rightfully earned throne, and Jason didn’t look like the kind of guy you usurped with impunity.  

Jason had continued quietly and lowly, talking to Bruce, just the barest scrape of his words betraying an ocean of nasty emotions beneath the surface, “The Joker showed me a video of you and the new kid, just to make the hurting worse.”

Tim had turned off the feed and slammed his laptop shut, but not before the words sewed themselves into his head, along with a technicolor mental image of Jason, already bloodied and wounded beyond imagining, but realizing that some knives cut beyond the flesh.  Besides being quiet and logical, Tim regrettably had a fabulous imagination as well, making the scene easy to picture and impossible to forget, as if he’d been standing there himself.   

“I stole the title,” Tim had said to himself as he stared at the wall of his bedroom from a foot away, seeing nothing.  Seeing everything far too clearly.  He’d braced his hands against the wallpaper that his mother liked but he hated, and had whispered again, getting used to the truth in the sound, “I _stole_ it all.”

Usurper to the throne.  

He’d run from one place where he wasn’t needed right into another.  

Maybe that said something.  Maybe that said, ‘ _This is what you’re destined for, Timmy.  You can call anyplace you want ‘home,’ but it’ll never say it back to you_.’

The only thing that kept Tim from curling up in the nest of his own self-pity right there and then, and possibly staying there until the world ended, was the deep realization that Jason had to be hurting worse than he was.  Jason, who was remembered as a ‘soldier,’ but apparently not remembered enough for the Batman to question the lack of a body, to hunt him down, to find him.  Jason, who’d probably been tortured until he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, right until a new kind of agony was introduced, a new kind of agony wearing Tim Drake’s face.  Jason, who’d come back from the dead but couldn’t come home.  

Yeah, that was when it started.  That was when Tim’s allegiance somehow slipped and split, until he’d give his life for two things: for Batman… and for Jason Todd.  And maybe a little bit more for Jason, because he was the betrayed party here, and Tim felt as guilty as fuck.  

~^~

To be honest, Tim and Bruce had never developed a completely friendly relationship.  Part of that Tim blamed on himself - he didn’t exactly have experience in making friends, so when he and the Bat reached equilibrium with a stubborn sort of cordialness, he didn’t question it or push further.  He just did his job, learning to fight and chase and do his new tasks better, and at least Bruce’s occasional, close-lipped compliments were still worlds-away more common that Mr. and Mrs. Drake’s.  So it was better, if not nice.  

After Jason came back, ‘better’ got a little bit less appealing.  Tim wasn’t the only one feeling guilty, but Bruce bottled his emotions up differently, and Tim wasn’t entirely sure he liked it.  While Tim quietly hacked systems and built things and was arguably rather productive, there were a lot of nights where Wayne paced and paced and paced until Alfred had to come and get him to sleep.  Which usually led to yelling.  Tim wasn’t sure what he preferred: a Batman who locked up all of his emotions in a steel vault that Tim had no hope of ever getting to, or a Batman who let his emotions out in a vitriolic torrent, reminding Tim that Bruce was terrifyingly well-trained in multiple deadly arts, while both Alfred and Tim himself were novices in comparison.  

Bruce did not deal with Jason’s return very well.  And who could blame him?

It didn’t help that all three times that Jason met up with his old mentor, the two fought like big cats in a small sack.  Tim tried to make himself scarce then.  He had no more idea than Bruce did how to deal with a resurrected and vengeful Jason Todd, but Tim knew _himself_ well enough to know that verbal confrontation wasn’t his strong point - he was the kind of person who planned things, made a speech beforehand and practiced it, and he could see how that would go right off the tracks as soon as Jason opened his mouth.  Bruce wouldn’t talk about Jason _before_ , but after the Lazarus Pit, Jason was chaos incarnate, which made the geometric cogs of Tim’s brain bolt like skittish horses.  

And besides: What did one say to the guy they’d presumed dead, and then replaced?  “Sorry this happened - I didn’t exactly plan it this way”?  “If I’d known you were alive a little sooner, I’d have stopped making alterations to your cape before turning it into a set of electro-responsive wings”?  “I feel really sorry for you, but it’s not pity, I swear, I just don’t have a better word to describe the kind of bad I feel for everything that you survived”?

Yeah, Tim was willing to bet that any of those options would earn him a punch in the nose before he even got to the third word.  

It was a terribly long time before any sort of normalcy returned.  Batman still hunted vigilantes and Tim still went with him, playing Robin even if he felt like a fraud now, and Jason Todd took up the title of the Red Hood, and etched out his own corner of the criminal world to beat up - or cozy up to, if Bruce’s frequent mutterings were to be believed.  Tim tried not to take sides, but it was hard.  At about this point, he started to wonder if he was a pacifist, and if this wasn’t the world he should ever had found himself in - he certainly wanted nothing more than for everyone to just get along.  

Go figure Tim would manage to move from one dysfunctional family to an even more dysfunctional one.  He’d made it work before, so he’d make it work again, though.

~^~

Tim and Jason met up very, very rarely, and Tim thought that some of that was a purposeful move by Bruce.  As Jason and Bruce’s relationship managed to impossibly sour _more_ , Bruce kept his new Robin apart from his old Robin, as if physically reinforcing the fact that he simply could not reconcile the new status quo.  Still, it was inevitable that Tim and Jason ran into each other.  

The first time it happened, Tim had been hanging out at Wayne Manor after school, his homework finished practically as soon as it was assigned and his parents unlikely to miss him for days, much less hours.  It was still too early to do proper vigilante stuff, but apparently it hadn’t been too early for visiting hours with broody Bats and estranged ex-Robins - so when Tim turned a corner, a tablet balanced on one hand and a stylus in the other as he worked on weaponry designs, he nearly walked right into Jason.  

Tim had definitely gotten lectures about getting distracted by his thoughts.  Fortunately, it didn’t happen much in the field, but indoors, his brain worked too much, and basically became its own Gordian knot before long - and he missed all manner of things, from Alfred calling his name to broad-shouldered, leather-wearing Jason Todds rounding corners in his direction.  Both of them were startled, and Jason stiffened in place while Tim physically jumped back a step.  

Since Jason had ditched almost anything resembling a costume save that red helmet, he’d basically become equally intimidating both on and off the job.  Bruce Wayne, while very capable of looking foreboding, could be differentiated from his dangerous alter-ego by his costume - but Jason took down bad guys and walked around town in basically the same thing: black under-armor shirt, collared leather jacket (tan or black, take your pick), and dark jeans that looked so tough that they may as well have been Kevlar.  They probably had panels sewn in.

Jason’s eyes may as well have been made of blue-green chips of unimpressed glass, the way they stared at Tim without giving way.  Never once had Tim seen Jason anything like relaxed, and he was tensed now, either from just exiting a squabble with Bruce or from walking into a kid who was probably his nemesis.  “Drake,” Jason eventually rumbled by way of greeting.  He sounded like a tiger growling.  

Tim was awesome at a lot of things, things that his parents cooed and bragged about at parties before promptly forgetting about once returning home, but public speaking was most definitely not one of those things.  Some equivalent of very real stage-fright seized his lungs, and for a good three seconds he just stood and blinked like a deer in the headlights, totally failing in his efforts not to stare at the slice of white hair that fell above Jason’s darkly lowered eyebrows.  “Hood,” was what he finally managed to stutter back, and then mentally face-palmed, because a more appropriate answer would have been ‘Jason’ (if Tim wanted to show increased friendliness) or ‘Todd’ (if he wanted to simply return the stiff greeting in kind).  But nope: he had to go for a shortened work-related title instead, the new vigilante name that signified Jason’s break with his former life.

Surprisingly, Jason’s reaction was a flash of surprise, followed by a gruff bark of noise that might have been laughter.  The elder, ex-Robin turned his head abruptly as if to hide it, but Tim was still stunned to see a small smirk in profile even as Jason muttered with a gravedigger’s kind of humor, “Well, at least someone accepts that I’ve set up shop on my own.”  With that, Jason detoured around Tim and continued on his way, prowling slow and easy.  “See you around, Rin-Tim-Tim,” he called back over his shoulder, and by the time Tim realized that he was offended by that nickname (no one _ever_ nicknamed him), Jason was beyond the reach of his retorts.  

The nicknames became a thing (ranging from ‘Timmy’ to ‘Baby Bird’ with an endless plethora in between), and Tim resigned himself to them, deciding that passive-aggressive name-calling was better than getting into an actual fight with Jason Todd.

~^~

The day that everything finally came to a head (and by ‘everything,’ Tim probably meant his strange and guilt-driven loyalty to a predecessor who barely tolerated him) was the day that the Scarecrow escaped from Arkham Asylum, and despite his pacifist tendencies, Tim began to seriously reconsider Batman’s ‘no kill’ policy.  He was tempted to ask Batman if Arkham had some sort of ‘catch and release’ program going on, but bit his tongue, because Batman still wasn’t very chatty with him.  Oh, they talked, but it was all business, and sometimes Tim told himself that he liked it that way.

Sometimes he even believed himself.  

“You take the east side,” Batman said, suited up and voice as rough as new gravel, “We need to track him down.  He shouldn’t be as dangerous without access to his old labs, but we still want this contained.”

Tim stood a bit straighter, as he always did when attention was on him and he was treated like something important.  He felt the buzz in his limbs that was not quite adrenalin, not quite excitement, not quite nerves, and yet all three - an effervescence fizzle in his veins.  “Understood,” he said obediently.  

Gazing off into the distance as if he could pin the Scarecrow down with his eagle gaze alone, Batman nodded once to accept the word, then added, “I’ve already alerted Nightwing, so he and his team will be coming in as back-up.”

Before Tim could think better of it, the question slipped out of his mouth, “Have you called up Jason, too?”

The second that Tim saw Batman’s mouth thin into a hard, bloodless line beneath the rim of his cowl, he realized that he’d made a mistake in speaking, and shrank in on himself a little.  Batman didn’t turn, didn’t move, but something about him was perceptibly harder and more closed off as he replied after just a beat too long, “The _Red Hood_ has made it very clear that he doesn’t play for our team.  We’ll call him and only if absolutely necessary.”

On the occasions when Tim and Jason were in the same location, Tim called him ‘Hood’ a lot, but mostly because he couldn’t get out of the rut that he’d started himself on that day in the hallway.  However, he never said it with the cold hardness that Batman did now, as if the name were a betrayal of some sort.  Because apparently he was very empathetic as well as a secret-pacifist, Tim flinched a little to hear it, and sighed slowly in defeat as he realized that the chasm between Bruce and Jason was only getting wider, not smaller.  

“I’ll do a sweep of the east side,” Tim repeated his duty solemnly, his words a quiet peace-offering as he changed the subject and subtly reaffirmed his willingness to do as he was told.  In his life, he’d learned that people always liked that best.  

Grunting affirmation with a stiff nod, Batman took that as the end of the conversation, and vaulted off into the night very much like his namesake.  

Instead of following immediately, Tim turned deeper into the house.  He was unsurprised when he was almost immediately met by Alfred, the man having a keen eye for things out of the ordinary.  “Master Drake, I thought you were going out,” he said, with that careful tone that asked a question even when his words presumed nothing.  

Glad that he had his mask on already, in the small hopes that it hid something of the naked emotions in his grey-blue eyes, Tim looked up at the old butler and picked his words slowly, carefully.  Instead of answering the question, he said after he’d collected himself, “Alfred, do you think it would be possible for you to call Jas-  I mean, the Red Hood?  It would be impolite not to let him know that the Scarecrow is loose in Gotham.”

Something on Alfred’s face twitched, perhaps the stifled start of a knowing smile, but the elderly man had had many years to learn a good poker-face.  There might have remained something fond in his eyes and tone, however, as he nodded and replied without hesitation, “I do believe you’re right, Master Drake.  I think that that could be arranged.  I’ll get to it presently.”

Feeling just a bit better, with both of his loyalties satisfied, the young man nodded, stood a bit easier, and turned to follow Bruce out into Gotham’s night.

~^~

Tim really was well-trained at this point, but the fact remained that he hadn’t been Robin as long as any of his predecessors had, and Jason Todd had been a sneaky, cunning sonofabitch even before Bruce Wayne had taken him in.  

Being a detective at heart meant that Tim saw the little things, and translated them into a roadmap in his head - in this case, a roadmap of a particularly insane criminal making his way into the seedier parts of town, right into the thick of Jason’s territory.  Unfortunately, Tim didn’t think too closely on what that meant until he heard a faint scuff behind him, and he was spinning and going into attack-mode without even thinking about it.  

A flex of his hand was all it took to run low-voltage electricity through the material of his new cloak, turning supple material into stiff ‘feathers’ that were literally hard and sharp enough to cut flesh.  He led with that, right ‘wing’ snapping out and giving him reach that his adolescent body didn’t quite have yet, even as his left hand went for the extendable staff at his belt.  He wasn’t bad with the batarangs, but Nightwing he was not.  The bo-staff was a safer bet in Tim’s hands.  

All bets were off when your opponent was the Red Hood, however, and that was exactly who Tim found himself facing when he spun.  Jason reacted immediately like a pit-bull tossed into a dog-fighting ring: all teeth, no rules.  There was an offensive scritching noise as the leading edge of Tim’s wing hit Jason’s raised left forearm and was blocked by some kind of armor hidden beneath his leather jacket.  While Tim was left shocked at the realization that he’d just attacked an ally - _unsuccessfully_ \- Jason’s right hand snapped forward, and Tim felt gloved fingers close around his throat.  Jason let his momentum carry him forward, and a second later, Tim’s shoulder-blades thudded into the alley wall behind him.  It only took a matter of seconds for Jason to subdue him, all told.

Jason had his helmet on, but the dark eye-sockets of the red dome were probably mimicking the glower behind quite effectively.  “Didn’t B ever teach you not to attack what you can’t kill?” he growled, the mask giving the words a truly spine-chilling double-harmonic sound.  At the same time, however, Jason’s hand loosened.  Tim had already dropped both hands to his sides, as if it had never occurred to him to defend himself after he recognized his foe.  Which it hadn’t.  

“Sorry,” Tim puffed, heart hammering and breathing fast from just a few seconds of action.  He now had a whole new appreciation for just how fast and strong Jason was, an appreciation that he could have honestly done without.  Then, because Tim really didn’t do words all that well under surprise circumstances, he found himself blurting, “What are you doing here?”

“I _live_ around here,” Jason retorted.  He released Tim’s neck entirely to step back, but somehow never quite lost the bellicose posture.  His tone sounded incredulous, and he cocked his head as if looking for signs that Tim had a concussion, or had just been dropped on his head too many times as a child.  Before Tim could scowl back at him and come up with some sort of reply, Jason relented to add, “And Alfred called.  Said something about that bastard Scarecrow.  I’m honestly surprised B felt the urge to clue me in.”

Guilt wriggled in Tim’s gut, and he found his eyes dropping to look at his boots before he quickly corrected the gesture, but not before Jason had seen it.  “I… uh…” he fumbled, but tried to do better this time at extemporizing.  He went for the truth, if not all of it, “Well, it makes sense to tell you, right?  I mean, you know this part of the city best.”  Jason was watching him very closely right now, his mask giving away nothing, but his silence and his too-still posture was speaking wonders, so Tim hurried to distract from the fact that Batman hadn’t wanted to involve his old protege at all, “And I think that the Scarecrow is here, nearby.  I tracked him this far.”

“You tracked him?  What are you, some kind of bloodhound?”  The incredulously arched eyebrow was invisible, but heavily implied.

Tim sighed and couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes skyward, because really, Jason Todd could be exasperating.  “No, I followed _clues_.  Probabilities.  I figured that if the Scarecrow was back in town, he’d want to hide out somewhere he knew, or somewhere that he might have stashed something, and I looked it up: some of his old haunts are around here.”

Instead of further criticising Tim’s nerdy tracking abilities (something that Jason usually did with notable amusement), the Red Hood’s shoulders suddenly tensed, and he blurted, “The warehouse.”

Tim blinked.  “Okay… that’s vague.  But if you know of a place-”

“I do.”  Jason was immediately heading off, very much like a hound on a scent himself, although he paused to look back a moment later, “You coming or going, Baby Bird?  Because I ain’t gonna ask twice.”

It never even occurred to Tim to say no.  The usurper feeling in his gut was still a black hole, as big as before, and he craved at all times to fill it up with something worthwhile - maybe with forgiveness, even though he hadn’t had the guts yet to ask for it.  He and Jason had never once talked about their shared position as Robin.  

“I’m coming with you,” Tim said immediately and stubbornly, because if he couldn’t ask Jason to forgive him for becoming Robin in his place, then he could maybe work off the debt a little, by providing whatever backup Jason might need.  

~^~

It turned out that Jason needed back-up more than usual.  In all honesty, they should have waited for Batman and Nightwing both, but no one could have predicted just how much trouble the Scarecrow could prepare in the half hour before he was found.  

An entire hour later, so far on the outskirts of Gotham that Tim honestly didn’t even know where they were, the newest Robin sat back against the wall of an abandoned building, breathing heavily and tasting copper all over his tongue.  He sniffed, then winced as pain radiated in an electric shock along his nose, and a bit more blood trickled down his the back of his throat and down to his lip.  He licked it away on tired reflex, another reflex making him tighten his left hand in the material of Jason’s jacket, near his left knee with the rest of Jason Todd.  

Things had not gone well.

Fear toxin.  Batman had inoculated Tim for it just before they’d left, giving a quick rundown of how the stuff worked to make you see your worst nightmares if you weren’t prepared for it.  There had always been a chance that the Scarecrow would have a bit of the stuff stashed away somewhere, and thanks to Tim’s detective skills, they’d found that stash - but not before the Scarecrow.  Both Tim and Jason, prepared but nowhere near prepared enough, had been caught by surprise and had gotten whole lungfuls of the stuff before they realized that they’d walked into a carefully planned ambush.  

Even with the antidote in his system, Tim had been able to feel the drug like corpse-cold fingers on his skin.  Fortunately, Tim’s natural reaction to fear had always been the same and hadn’t changed since he’d become a vigilante’s sidekick: when afraid, Tim got quieter, smaller, wanting to huddle in on himself until his lungs creaked painfully and struggled to breath against the pressure of his legs tucked against his torso.  He’d felt the urge powerfully when the fear toxin hit, but managed to push it down enough to function, thanks to the antitoxin.  

Jason… Jason hadn’t been inoculated, because Batman hadn’t wanted him around in the first place, and Jason also reacted very, very differently to fear than Tim did.  When Jason got scared, that was just the start: it was just a catalyst, and what it set off was the kind of wild fury that only an animal in a trap could know.  Fearful dogs bit the fastest and the hardest.  Tim was harmless when he was scared, but Jason most certainly was not.

The Scarecrow had gotten away, but not before Jason did a serious number on him, which would maybe be awesomely funny when they looked back on this.  It had been a quick, wild fight, with fear pulling out all of Jason’s fight or flight responses - the Scarecrow simply hadn’t counted on the former being tenfold more powerful than the latter.  When the Scarecrow finally bolted free, however, that left Tim with Jason, and suddenly _‘Fuck’_ didn’t even begin to cover the situation.  Jason had been breathing hard, swaying, and as wild as a wounded animal, and Tim realized that if he didn’t do something, the ‘flight’ part of Jason’s instincts just might take over, and then what would happen?

Sitting now with blood painting his lips and chin and an ache that had spread all through his ribcage from a dozen places, Tim admitted that Jason had the meanest right hook he’d ever experienced.  But Jason had already suffered death once already, all alone with no allies in sight… and Tim couldn’t let that happen again, even if only psychologically.  He couldn’t leave Jason alone with his worst nightmares twice, not when Tim was pretty sure what those nightmares were about: the Joker, torture, Jason’s own death and messy resurrection...  

“It’s all right,” Tim whispered, a bit awkwardly but with great sincerity, as he stroked a sore hand over Jason’s arm.  He didn’t have any antitoxin with him, but he did have knock-out darts, and after getting past Jason’s nastier fighting skills, he’d managed to stick him with one - so now, sans helmet and out cold, Jason was lying at Tim’s side.  The soporific had had a hard time gaining purchase against the fear toxin, and Tim hadn’t been doing so well himself, so the two of them had stumbled like drunks away from that ill-fated warehouse to... wherever they were now... before Jason had collapsed.  Tim couldn’t bring himself to let the other guy sprawl with his head on the dusty ground, so he’d dragged them both over to the nearest wall and had insinuated himself beneath Jason’s head.  Despite being knocked out, Jason still twitched on occasion and snarled in his sleep, as if he were baring wolf-teeth at the monsters of his dreams.  

Tim squeezed the man’s shoulder again, feeling like ten times a failure as he imagined just what those nightmares contained.  Feeling raw from his own mitigated dose of the toxin, Tim’s eyes welled up without warning, and he sucked in another bloody breath before wiping at his eyes.  He sighed raggedly, and pulled Jason a bit closer to him, unsure which of them he was comforting.  “It’s all right.  You’re not alone this time,” he said with quiet fervor, and wished that Jason hadn’t rung his bell so hard, or maybe he’d be able to figure out where they were, and what to do next.  Right now, he still felt the urge to curl up tight, an instinct that made him intensely opposed to leaving the little, abandoned hidey-hole he’d found them in this empty building.  He was safe here.  He could _keep Jason safe_ here.  Fisting his hand in the thick, warm material over Jason’s ribs, Tim buried his other hand in Jason’s hair, feeling a ridiculous flicker of happiness when the older vigilante stilled a bit and stopped writhing in his sleep.  He gave a gentle and tentative stroke, the white streak of hair slipping through his gloved fingers like a fish in dark waters.

“You should never have been alone like that,” Tim said, admitting something that he’d never said out loud.  “Someone should have protected you.”  His own protectiveness, impotent though it was, surged up in him, and Tim cast a paranoid glance to all of the room’s exits and all of the room’s shadows.  It took him a second to settle again, and his hands never left Jason’s head and torso.  He kept talking, aware that he was basically talking to himself, because Jason was presently beyond hearing, “I know…  I know that the Joker tortured you with… well, with me.  With my existence.  I’m not supposed to know that, but I eavesdropped.”  Lowering his eyes and feeling his lashes get hot and wet with tears he’d wanted to shed for a long time, Tim resisted the urge to scrub at his eyes only because that would make his nose hurt worse.  “I think you broke my nose,” he said in a small pathetic voice that strove for humor and fell very, very short.  

Tim seemed to have a knack for falling short, it seemed.  

“I’d have given you your place back, you know?”  He didn’t know why he was confessing all of this - maybe it was a bad reaction to the fear toxin and the antitoxin, or maybe it was the knowledge that no one was listening to him.  No one ever really listened to him, but this was the first time it paid dividends.  “I still would, if you asked.  This…”  He shook his head, feeling sad to his very bones but still being utterly sincere as he went on, “This suit, this mask… they’re not really mine, so if you want them…   _Dammit_.”  He couldn't even find the right words when there was no audience to pressure him.  When he took a deep breath, the focus of his pain transferred from his nose to his bruised and maybe cracked ribs, also courtesy of Jason as Tim had tried to subdue him.  “I’m just saying that you never lost your home.  I didn’t mean to take it.  Okay?”

Somehow, he didn’t feel all that much better for having said it.  In fact, all it did was make the tears slip down his cheek in earnest, and he squeezed his eyes shut, ashamed.  He felt so lost, and in that moment, he wondered if Batman had lied and had never given him the antitoxin - and had instead just given him a placebo, in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to deal with Tim again, and would finally solve the ‘two-Robin problem’...  “Dammit!” Tim snarled again with more feeling, realizing that he really wasn’t himself, as the paranoia slipped in around the defenses of the antitoxin - or perhaps it was just pulling to the surface things that Tim had been pretending not to think for a long time now.  He thumped his head back against the wall, trying to ground himself, and found some meagre relief a few moments later, as his rioting emotions settled into an unsteady sea that he could just keep his head above.  

He continued to find some small comfort in running one hand over Jason’s hair and fisting the other in his leather jacket like it was some sort of teddy-bear he could grab onto.  

They stayed like that for over an hour - the amount of time it took for Batman and Nightwing to take down the Scarecrow, and then realize that Tim was missing.  Thankfully, even if Tim was a bit too battered to realize it, he _did_ have a tracking device on him, one that led Batman right to him, and to Jason, whom Tim was still defending like a badger by the time a familiar shadow filled the doorway.  Sitting with one leg having fallen asleep beneath Jason’s head, Tim had stiffened and bared his teeth very much like a badger, at first not recognizing a friend instead of a foe, and very much preparing for a fight.  

Something tired and sad filled Batman’s posture as he took in the scene of his latest sidekick playing guard-dog to the sidekick that he’d failed the most in this world.  For a second, it was clear that Tim was prepared to take on the Batman himself in Jason’s defense, and in that moment before lucidity set in, it became clear to both Tim _and_ Bruce that Robin had taken sides in the feud between Batman and the Red Hood.  Tim immediately quailed and almost physically withdrew as he realized how transparent - and transparently _aggressive_ \- he was being, but not before recognition passed painfully between them.  Even as Tim unfisted his hand, however, it was only to drop it back on Jason’s shoulder.  It trembled a little but ultimately stayed firm.

There was no time for squabbles now, though.  Stepping closer so that Tim could clearly see who he was, and that his hands were open and unthreatening, Bruce said exhaustedly, “Come on, Tim.  Let’s go home. I’ll carry Jason.”

~^~

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason's memories of the day are pretty garbled - but after he wakes up, he starts remembering a few things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to see things from Jason's POV ;)

Chapter 2: Jason Todd

~^~

The knife felt like it laid a thin trail of fire across Jason’s back, following the slow, meticulous drag of the Joker’s hand.  “Every bird needs a set of wings,” the Joker informed him shrilly, excitedly continuing as he began another gently curving cut, “Let’s see if I can channel my artistic side and _draw_ you some nice robin wings!”

Amidst the pain and blood, Jason heard a voice, and voice that shouldn’t have been there.  It seemed like it echoed from the very center of his skull, set apart from the horrific scene all around him: “ _It’s all right.  You’re not alone this time_.”

A crowbar against his ribs.  This had happened later, after Jason had been strung up from the ceiling for so long that one of his shoulders felt like it was barely clinging to its socket.  

“ _You should never have been alone like that_ ,” the voice blossomed in his head again, sending fissures of numbness through the pain, “ _Someone should have protected you_.”  The fierceness in the words allowed Jason to inhale, even though he could feel broken bones grinding around his lungs.  

He heard the Joker laughing wildly, a hyena’s manic cry, but he was sure now that he could feel a hand in his hair - and not a fisted grip, but a careful carding of fingers through the strands.  The words were making less and less sense, but the voice and the touch began to seem more real than the agonies being inflicted on his body.   _“I know…  I know that the Joker tortured you with… well, with me.  With my existence.  I’m not supposed to know that, but I eavesdropped. ...  I think you broke my nose…_ ”  Hanging from those chains, Jason frowned, bemused by the quiet accusation but beginning to recognize the voice.  

It felt like his brain was trying to split in half - partially because the Joker had slammed his head into the wall repeatedly, and partially because he was sure that he was at once tied up with his throat in the Joker’s hand and _also_ lying horizontal, hard ground beneath his right side.  He felt a phantom sensation of gravity pulling at him, at the same time that he felt something warm and more forgiving than ground cushioning his cheek.  There were gentle touches amidst the violence, and even though he opened his eyes to see smeared, garish face-paint and a mad grin, when Jason closed his eyes, he thought he saw a different warehouse floor stretching out in front of his vision, and a leg, all tipped sideways.  

 _“I’d have given you your place back, you know?”_  The voice was now coming from somewhere above his head, and never rose in volume yet still remained incredibly clear.  ‘ _Tim_ ,’ Jason suddenly realized.  He was hearing Tim.  But how…?  

As if hearing Jason’s splintered thoughts, the Joker leered at him and teased, “Old Bats has already replaced you - just as soon as he heard that I’d broken his little bird’s wings, he went to the pet-store and bought himself another.”

Tim.  The name echoed in Jason’s head again, and he felt the old anger and hurt roar up again.  Before it could reach a familiar, broiling pitch of pain, however, he heard Drake’s voice again, and somehow it slashed through the Joker’s words like a clear bell being rung, “ _I still would, if you asked.  This… This suit, this mask… they’re not really mine_.”

Confusion bubbled in Jason’s stomach, and the pain seemed weirdly far away, the Joker’s voice warping.  

Tim’s voice finished, strangely thin and sad, “ _So if you want them…_ Dammit.”  Jason of the past began to connect with the Jason of the present, and he recollected with unexpected clarity that he’d never her Tim swear before.  The Drake kid was as polite as Jason was rude.  The surprise of the swearing was followed by the shock of hearing something like tears in Tim’s usually factual voice, as Jason heard the younger boy finish clearly, “ _I’m just saying that you never lost your home.  I didn’t mean to take it.  Okay?_ ”

Jason didn’t know what to do with what he was hearing, but the words had shattered the dream’s grip, and suddenly Jason couldn’t hear the Joker roaring in his face, or even feel the knife that plunged into his stomach.  There was only a deep and pleasant blackness, with his last sensation being the awareness of a hand gripping his shoulder with the intent of never letting go.  

~^~

Jason came awake slowly, an oddity for him, because even before Batman had taken him in, Jason had learned to wake up instantly - and ready to fight.  Instead of being fighting ready, he groaned and blinked torpidly now, struggling to gather his faculties.  

“Ah, Master Jason,” Alfred’s familiar voice curtailed any mounting violent impulses; if Alfred was speaking so calmly, Jason couldn’t be in too much danger.  “You’re awake.  I wouldn’t recommend moving too quickly - you’ve had a very rough night.”

Despite the warnings, Jason sat up, lifting a hand to rub it over his face.  “What the hell happened?” he muttered in his palm, then dropped his hand to stare grumpily at the I.V. taped to the back of his hand.  Taking stock, he tried to figure out just how bad off he was.  “And what the fuck am I doing here?”

“Master Bruce brought you back to the mansion,” Alfred, sitting at Jason’s bedside, said mildly but with a touch of wry humor in his old eyes, “Or, rather, Master Timothy did.  Mr. Wayne merely provided the necessary muscle to physically carry you, although I rather think that young Timothy would have attempted to do that as well, had he not been reminded that he was injured and somewhat smaller in size than you.”

“Tim?”  Bits of Jason’s dream swam back to him, and with it the whole repertoire of yesterday’s memories: catching Baby Bird on his turf, teaming up with him in a satisfying hunt for Scarecrow, and then the nightmarish aftermath when everything went to shit.  His recollections were fuzzy after being hit by a gas that had smelled of turpentine and mushrooms, but he tried to put it all back together slowly.  “He’s hurt, too?” he asked to try and get his bearings.

“Physically, he probably got it worse than you,” Alfred said, sounding displeased and a bit huffy - a familiar tone in Jason’s ears.  Usually it had been directed at both Jason and Bruce equally, when they didn’t listen to medical advice.  “Before the two of you managed to escape the Scarecrow, he accrued three cracked ribs and a broken nose on top of an assortment of other scrapes and bruises.”

At the words ‘broken nose,’ Jason froze, a bit of what he’d assumed to be a dream snapping into sudden clarity.  Things were still disjointed and had a dreamlike quality, but he thought he remembered Tim saying - to him - “ _I think you broke my nose_.”  Jason felt embarrassment crawl unbidden up his throat, heating his cheeks and ears.  

Alfred was still talking: “Masters Bruce and Dick handled Scarecrow before finding you both.  Master Tim was adamant that you be treated first, before he would allow himself to be seen.  You have found yourself quite a friend, Jason.”

The use of just his name without any honorific caught Jason, and he wasn’t sure whether to feel special or defensive.  He looked away, choosing the latter because it was what he’d gotten used to.  “Wasn’t looking for one,” he grunted aloofly.  But he couldn’t help but glance back out of the corner of one eye and ask, “Where’s the kid now?”  They were in the Batcave’s disturbingly well stocked infirmary, but none of the other beds were occupied.  

“I hope that he’s gone home, but I imagine that he’ll be back.”  Alfred’s mouth gave a suspicious upward twitch, hinting at a dry smile.  “Especially if you pretend to sleep.”

Narrowing his eyes, Jason eyed Alfred distrustfully before asking slowly, “Why?”

Suddenly, Alfred’s face softened: the hint of mischief became a sad sort of fondness that went right for Jason’s heart with grabbing hands.  Smiling that melancholic smile, Alfred said candidly, “You’ve been asleep for the better part of a day, as we’ve worked to counteract Scarecrow’s fear toxin, and Timothy has hardly left your side.”  

Jason was about to ask if Bruce had been present at all, but bit his tongue at the last second when he decided he didn’t want to know the answer.  He’d accepted that there’d be no returning to the way things were between him and Bruce.  Tim, though, was really taking him by surprise.  More and more, he was pretty sure that _he’d_ been the one to break Tim’s nose, yet the kid had apparently been instrumental in getting him back here somehow, and had stuck to him like a burr even afterwards.  Tim had always seemed rather weak and hesitant by Jason’s reckoning, making this so wildly out of character that Jason didn’t know what to do with it.  So he focused on his own condition instead, the cobwebs sufficiently brushed from his brain to allow for some self-assessment.  Besides some mild aches and a nasty headache, and the annoying itch of the I.V. needle in the back of his hand, he didn’t feel all that bad.  He was bruised but not broken.

The story of his life - mostly.  

Alfred had just sat and watched as Jason catalogued his own condition, and was patiently waiting when Jason looked up and asked, “So how soon can I get out of this bed?”

The old man smiled very wanly.  “If I say ‘tomorrow’ then you’ll be up and about within an hour, I imagine?”

“I don’t like sitting around, Alfred,” Jason defended truthfully.

The old man was too proper to truly scoff, but he looked tempted.  His eyes twinkled a bit as he said diplomatically instead, “I see.  If you would oblige me, I would like to at least check your condition once more - then you can try and get up the moment my back is conveniently turned.”

These were the moments when Jason realized how much he missed the old butler.  “Deal, Alfred.”

~^~

Jason felt stiff as hell, but apparently his lengthy nap had done wonders for him otherwise.  He felt fit, well-rested, and there was no sign of the toxin the Scarecrow had gotten him with.  

This would have put Jason in a stellar mood, but before he could make good on Alfred’s offer to let him escape, Bruce turned up.  The man had appeared in the doorway like a fucking wraith - Jason still couldn’t figure out how he did that; Bruce was a full-grown man for fuck’s sake - and waited until Jason noticed him.  Then followed a long moment of stony silences.  Finally Bruce basically asking for a report, which he interrupted multiple times to give a report of his own.  Which led to more awkward, stony silences.  They somehow managed to finish the narrative without it devolving into a shouting match, but that was probably only due to three things: Bruce was strangely subdued, Jason was still in bed and therefore in a less offensive pose himself, and Alfred was eyeing them both warningly.  

The whole story got out: Tim and Jason had found Scarecrow.  Scarecrow had gotten the jump on them.  After that, Bruce recounted what he’d learned from Tim: Jason, despite being high on fear toxin, had beaten the shit out of the Scarecrow until the supervillain had escaped, at which point Tim had ‘assessed the situation and decided that darting Jason with a soporific would be wise’ (Tim’s words probably; Jason could all but hear them, as factual as a fresh cop), then gotten them both to a safe location to await pick-up.  Bruce related in typically brief, clipped terms how he himself had teamed with Nightwing to finish the job, capturing Scarecrow and returning him to Arkham.  

Bruce had been flicking his eyes between Jason and Alfred since nearly the start of the conversation, however, and when it was all finished, asked with feigned nonchalance, “So Alfred called you in?”

“Yeah, I assumed you-” Jason started, then realized soberingly, “You didn’t tell him to call me, did you?”

The Bat didn’t have the good grace to look embarrassed.  “No.  That had to have been Tim.  Am I right, Alfred?”

“I could always claim that it was my idea,” the butler said as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.  No one believed him, but no one pursued the subject either - perhaps because it seemed that Tim really had gone home, so any productive kind of lecture would have to wait.  Alfred was above such things.  Jason, however, was left to internally mull over the fact that Tim had thought to include him even when Bruce clearly hadn’t approved.  It created an unexpectedly warm feeling in his gut.  

Holding onto that feeling but refusing to smile, Jason finally levered himself to his feet.  His head only swam for a moment, and then his balance steadied out.  Alfred had already taken out the I.V., so he moved to leave.  “Well, it’s been fun, Bats - Alfred - but I guess I’d better go now.  You know, before I outstay my welcome and all that,” he said blithely.  

He’d almost walked past Bruce when the older vigilante stopped him, however, with a hand on his shoulder.  Jason’s first reaction was to tense and bristle.  He and Bruce hadn’t quite come to blows yet, but they’d come close, and the days were past when he respected and trusted the Batman as a father-figure.  Besides that, Jason had never liked people touching him - when he’d lived on the street, touch was dangerous - and he liked it even less after he’d come back from the dead.  

Bruce’s expression was shuttered but calm, however, and Jason noticed with slight irritation that the man was purposefully choosing non-combative body-language.  He was making an effort to appear nonthreatening, as if Jason were some kind of animal that would attack if it saw a hint of bared teeth.  While Jason scowled, however, at the hand still on his shoulder, Batman said levelly, “Stay awhile.  Tim usually comes back every night at eight, so he’ll be back around soon.”  Saying nothing more than that, Batman let go and exited the room.  

‘ _What the fuck?_ ’ Jason asked himself, left standing there to parse out the purpose behind Batman’s brief sentences.  Alfred had busied himself on the far end of the room, pretending not to hear.  Jason hadn’t even asked about the Drake kid...  

~^~

Despite having not asked, Jason decided to stick around anyway to wait for Tim.  Jason didn’t run into Bruce again, which was probably at least partially on purpose - they’d basically filled their quota for tolerating one another today, and it had been like torture not to bring up the white elephant in the room: Tim calling Jason in when Batman hadn’t.  Was Jason surprised by Bruce excluding him?  No?  Was he pissed?  Yes.  But it didn’t seem worthwhile to talk about it.

Jason wandered around, re-acquainted himself with the kitchen, napped in one of the guest bedrooms, and at 8:15pm walked in on Timothy Drake in the gym.  

Tim wasn’t exactly what one would call intimidating.  Jason had met Dick Grayson, his predecessor, and even Nightwing had a good deal of muscle on him - but Drake was slender, almost willowy, and it didn’t look promising that he’d put on any muscle mass as he grew either.  Jason tried to recall how old Tim was as he watched the younger Robin go through a few boxing moves in slow motion, just testing the position of the punching bag.  The younger boy winced and messed up his footing as he tried to extend his left hand with just a bit more speed, having to pause and clutch his side with his back still to Jason.

“If you’ve got cracked ribs, boxing isn’t going to be fun for a while,” Jason opined, and the newest Robin immediately spun around.  The kid had big, expressive eyes, and fine, black hair that was a bit longer than the other Robins’ favored styles.  He looked startled to find Jason there, and the relative grace he’d shown up until now disappeared.  Instead, he looked uncomfortable and nervous, standing there in just sweatpants and a sleeveless workout shirt.  

“Oh, uh…?”  Tim actually looked around as if he’d see words that he could grab out of the air and answer with.  Jason sometimes found talking to Drake actively funny, because the kid fumbled with speech so badly.  Tim self-consciously dropped his protective arm from his ribs.  “I suspected - well, I guess I knew - that I couldn’t do a full swing but… well…”  He shrugged, then winced, then finished weakly, “But I need the practice.”

Besides the way Tim was favoring one side, his other main injury was pretty obvious: he already had some impressive shiners and his nose was taped, making him look something of a wreck even though he clearly didn’t want to bring attention to it.  He had other bruises visible, too, although the worst by far was the spreading purple just visible past the gaping arm-holes of his shirt - someone had done a real nasty job on his ribs, that was for sure.  The problem was, the more Jason recalled of his nightmare-riddled fight with the Scarecrow, the more he thought that the Scarecrow wasn’t responsible for Tim’s main injuries at all.  In fact, nearly all of Jason’s memories included Tim (wisely) playing back-up, while Jason went toe-to-toe with the supervillain.  That meant that the only other person who could have hit Tim was Jason himself.  

If Jason _had_ been the one to bash Tim up, the younger Robin clearly wasn’t going to say it, just as he hadn’t told Batman or Alfred that version of the story.  “So - you’re still here?” Tim asked instead, hesitant curiosity in his voice.  “I thought-”  He gestured vaguely with a hand, which like Jason’s was wrapped around the knuckles - not for boxing, but because they’d been split open while fighting.  Tim had gotten a few punches in at least.  “-You know, that you’d…?”

“Be back home?” Jason supplied in a lazy drawl.

Tim unexpectedly hesitated, and the silence drew out while the younger boy just looked at Jason with an indefinable expression.  It was almost blank, almost unreadable, but there was something painful there - something that reminded Jason of the voice he’d heard in his dreams.  Much of that dream was still tangled in his head, but another flash of it became clear then: Tim’s voice, saying so fervently, “ _I’m just saying that you never lost your home.  I didn’t mean to take it.  Okay?_ ”  Home.  Suddenly Jason was seeing his successor in a new light, and he wasn’t sure how it made him feel.  

Tim shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot and finally said, “I’m glad you’re all right,” in a tone that said he meant it, soft and steady.  He seemed like he wanted to say more, then chickened out, stuffing his hands into his pockets.  “I should go find Bruce.  You know, to see if he needs me tonight,” he said hurriedly.  

“Hell, I don’t know about you, but I’m taking a day off after today,” Jason volleyed back with feeling.

Tim was already heading towards the door, however.  If nothing else, this Robin was light on his feet, and quick - more sparrow than robin.  He did look back from the doorway, however, to flash a very small, shy smile.  “Well, you know…” he shrugged, then just let the sentence hang as self-evident before disappearing like an inconspicuous shadow out the door.  

It was only after Tim had left that Jason realized that the kid had apparently gone home, come back, and now planned to stay out all night patrolling if necessary - but hadn't once mentioned his parents worrying about him.  Jason was pretty sure that, unlike the rest of the Batfam, Tim Drake actually had two perfectly alive parents.  “What the fuck kind of parents don’t notice their kid beaten black and blue, and then out all night?” Jason growled to himself.  Maybe Tim’s folks were out of town or something - even in Jason’s admittedly stunted knowledge of parents, he couldn’t think of any other excuse that would suffice.  He found himself unaccountably defensive on Tim’s behalf.  

Jason ‘borrowed’ a motorcycle from the Batcave and headed back to his side of town, determining to pay a bit more attention to Timothy Drake, and sleep on what he’d learned - because each memory that he recovered from the nightmarish haze seemed to include Tim in it, and led him to think that the kid was a lot braver than Jason had thought.

And a lot kinder to Jason than the ex-Robin thought he deserved.  

~^~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though this ends on a generally closing note, I do plan a sequel for this :) I've really been enjoying this fandom... and since Tim still desperately needs hugs, my writing endeavors shall continue.


End file.
